Just Another Manic Monday

Monday morning we got up and hit the ground running.  The landlord of the house in Alexander City was meeting us at the house at 10 AM to get the keys and tell us if we were good tenants.  Since we are now an hour away from Alex City we left the house by a bit after 6 so we could meet my sweet friend Mary at the house by a bit after 7.  She works the third shift at the hospital right now filling in for a friend.  Anywho...she was going to come...straight from work...without any sleep....and help us clean the house.  We beat her there because she went home and got out of her uniform.  I did a quick and thorough wipe down of the window sills.  I hate dusty window sills.  While I was doing that, Frank was loading up my plants and the few things left in the shed.  He was also nice and picked up the trash around the yard.  Mary's husband Bill cut the grass for us on Saturday...he is such a love.  WE sold our lawn mowers before we could cut the grass again.  Once Mary got there we all began a specific chore.  My job was to get rid of the food from the fridge that we did not take.  Mary was mopping, Frank was sweeping.  As we all know...men are not the best at sweeping...and Frank is no exception.  Mary ran the dust mop after he had finished...just to make sure.  Then we mopped.  The kitchen was the only floor with vinyl that could be straight mopped.  The other floors in the house were hardwood...OLD hardwood.....ABUSED hardwood.  I did not want to buy a bunch of new cleaning supplies...so we used up my hardwood floor cleaner on the first 4 rooms and the hallway.  Then....we mixed up some Murphy's Oil Soap...also great on hardwood floors and cleaned 1.5 more floors.  The last floor...it was done with Fabuloso...lavender scent.  The house looked fabulous.  Frank went and turned in the cable modems and stuff...Mary and I visited.  Mr. Landlord showed up at 10 on the dot.  Did a walk through...told us we were great tenants...took the keys and we were through.  After the marathon cleaning, we visited my mom, and then headed back to Rock Mills...to unpack some more.  Sigh....I think the boxes are like rabbits...and multiplying. 

Farts and Cake

“FFFFFFFTTTTTFFFFFF.”

“Amber, dammit, I’m going to take that away from you,” my husband Tom grumbled.

I laughed. I couldn’t help it.

See, I got an iPod Touch for my birthday and the first application (or app, as the cool kids call it) I downloaded was a farting one. You can time the thing to make a farting noise and when it does you can be all, “Did you just cut the cheese?”

I’ve done this joke in our house. A lot. Tom found it funny at first. But after the third time he was no longer amused.

“How old are you again?” Tom asked pointedly.

“Er....twenty eight....” I admitted. And then the iPod Touch farted again and I collaped into more giggles.

My birthday, which was on Saturday, didn’t start off that good though.

No, when I had stumbled down the stairs I expected Tom to take me in my arms and wish me a Happy Birthday. But no. I found him stretched out on the couch, fast asleep. And for my added enjoyment, as I glared down at him, he scratched his balls, let out a loud snore, and smacked his lips repeatedly.

Why wasn’t he up wishing me a happy birthday? On his birthday I always wish him a happy birthday first thing.

I was tempted to throw water on his inconsiderate sleeping face. But that wouldn’t be nice. And it could potentially put him in a foul mood. So instead I started stomping around the house. I slammed cupboards and banged on drawers. I peeked over my shoulder expecting to see Tom waking up. But no. He didn’t even budge.

Maybe he IS telling the truth when he says he doesn’t hear the kids when they wake up in the dead of night.

(Probably not, though.)

In the end I sent Natalie to wake him up. I knew he wouldn’t get upset with her. And he didn’t. I heard him go, “Woah!” and then his eyes fluttered open.

“Boo,” Natalie said, grinning down at him.

I strolled into the living room waiting for my birthday wish.

Tom just scratched his leg and looked confused.

I waited some more.

Tom sneezed and didn’t bother to cover his nose.

Gross. Remind me to sanitize that area.

Tom got up and seriously looked like he was going to leave without wishing me a happy birthday.

“Ahem,” I said sweetly. I would not get mad on my birthday.

“You have an eye booger,” Tom offered.

AN EYE BOOGER? IT WAS MY BIRTHDAY AND ALL HE COULD TELL ME WAS THAT I HAD AN EYE BOOGER?!

“Oh, and happy birthday,” Tom added almost as an afterthought.

Well. I’ll take it.

Plus Tom made me lasagna.

And there was cake.





So in the end I had an enjoyable birthday.

Filled with lots of cake.

(Seriously, I had one piece after dinner and one piece before bed. Yum.)

The House That Built Me

Yesterday, my friend Leigh over at Tales of Bloggeritaville posted a very touching piece about the "House That Built Me."  I was too tired yesterday to deal with it but thought since today was Father's Day I would address it today.  Today is a hard day for me....this is my first Father's Day without my father and I woke up feeling weepy. My dad was an apprentice in the union program when I was a child so we were poor.  My first house was a basement apartment owned by Ethel Morton.  I adored her.  Later, when my dad finished the program we moved into the house next door to the basement apartment.  I was the only child on the block and our house was directly across the street from Palm Beach High School's front yard.  What a big yard it was.  In the evenings my parents would take me across the street to run and rip in the Big Yard.  We would place chase, throw the ball, race....and yes I said We....they played with me.  That is a lot different from the way it is today with many families.  Life was good in the house on Georgia Avenue.  Dougie, my brother, and I were both born while we lived on that street.  When I was five we moved to the house I lived in until I moved away.  We moved to Vedado Park and to 1127 El Prado.  It is amazing that I even remember the number.  The first day I lived there I met the first of my amazing childhood friends.  I met Carol Geiger.  She was 5 too and we became inseperable.  Carol lived in the house directly behind mine.  What made it nice is that her parents Valerie and Harland also became my parents best friends and her sister Cathy"Hun" became my brother's best friend.  Our families had bbq's, went to the beach, hung out together and shared in each others lives.  That same year I met my other dear friend, Susan Johnson.  She lived just around the corner on Locust St.  Carol, Susan and I all started Vedado Park Kindergarten that year.  We started school back in the day when kindergarten was not required.  I love neighborhood schools and when we were six we started Belvedere Elementary.  We were the Belvedere Bee's.  When I was 9 and my brother was 5, Dougie died at the house.  He accidentally hung while swinging on a rope swing in the ficus tree in our backyard.  My fractured family dealt with the loss and pain due to the wonderful neighbors and friends we had on El Prado. I remember Halloween's back when they were safe...trick or treating in the neighborhood was fun.  We had one guy on the corner who made snow cones for every child that came by.  We could eat apples then without worrying about some sicko putting a razor blade in it.  Neighbors made homemade brownies and cookies....and Mrs. Dobson gave each of us a roll of pennies.  A&W had a rootbeer stand not far from the house and we would go there after a day at the beach.  We had hurricane parties...not the drunken bashes that people have today....but the Geigers and my families would stay in one house and play cards. We had BBQ's and Fish Fries and everyone in the neighborhood and my Uncle Cecils family all came and brought a dish.  These were huge events.  Carol and I would do little mini operettas....sometimes we would pretend we were the Beatles....fix our hair like them, dress up like them, and make guitars out of cardboard and string to play.  We had fruit trees in our back yard and I would sit outside in the evening and eat Duncan grapefruits right off the tree.  You have not lived til you have eaten a Duncan grapefruit.  We also had two Temple orange trees....another great delicasy and they are very hard to find today.  I became a Conniston Blue Devil in the 7th grade.  It was another neighborhood school.  My dad and I buried Peanuts under the grapefruit tree.  Peanuts was my first teacup Chihuahua.  A speeding car hit him less than 20 feet from me.  If she had swerved...she would have hit me.  My mom actually wrote a note to the school that day telling them that there had been a death in the family.  It was the only time she ever did anything like that.  Funny what memories writing will bring back up.  We either walked to school or were taken...on rainy days.  I had my first childhood kiss under the orange tree in my back yard.  I had my first real kiss in the neighborhood.  I remember it to this day.  Steve McLeod was my first big kiss.  I was 13...he was 16.  High School was not a neighborhood school so we had to ride a bus for the first time.  We attended Forest Hill High School and were the Falcons.  By now the loss of my brother was weighing heavy on my family and I could not wait to leave home and go to college.  I ended up at Palm Beach Junior College for just shy of two years....and then I quit....a quarter before finishing....how stupid I was.  I moved to Alabama to help my grandmother, went to work in a cotton mill banding sleeves on Jeerzees T-shirts, lived with my future sister-in-law, and met my first husband....but that is another day....today is the House That Built me.  It was a peach colored stucco house with a stoop and beautiful hibicus bushes in the front...and these red little flower bushes...that we would pick and remove the stems and suck the necture from the.  We also had Florida cherry bushes...we did not eat them...we used them as weapons in the neighborhood when we played war, or pirates, or whatever.  They actually hurt when they hit you...and would leave a terrible stain on your clothes.  My mother had a beautiful flame bush....and it flourished until....my mom was on some health kick...and made me take Castor Oil every morning before I left for school.  I learned how to roll it to the back of my mouth...and I would spit it on the flame bush as I left for school....the bush died....I am telling you people....Castor Oil is BAD!  My mom never understood why it died.  My dad and I would go fishing out of the turnpike, at the end of the street, or in Lake Okeechobee.  My childhood....in the House that built me, was memorable.  Some of the memories are bad....most of them are wonderful.  I went home a few years ago...I took Frank to see where I became me....and was saddened because progress has removed all of what I held dear.  The house and apartment on Georgia Ave.  were removed to make room for City Center...a big commercial mecca near the Kravitz Center of Performing Arts (on the grounds of Palm Beach High School).  My El Prado neighborhood is all gone.  It was to be made into a practice sports area for one of the area colleges.  I can't remember if it is FAU or FIU.  The only thing that remained are the driveways, the bushes that stood next to the houses, and it looked like some nuclear site where a bomb went off...and the world disappeared.  I cried as we drove away.  It is like "I" never exsisted in Florida.....but for a brief shining moment....when I was young....the House that Built Me...was.  Happy Father's Day...Hug those special Dad's in Your Life.

Chicken Q and Classic Car Show

It is not even daylight when we get up and head to the church this morning.  I have no idea what to expect.  Some of the men have been cooking since 1 AM.  Frank falls in with the guys outside and I go in to become part of the ladies brigade.  My job for the first part was watching Ms. Celia (Hope's wife) make from scratch bisquits.  I did not think anyone did that anymore.  I personally get mine from a bag our of the freezer section.  Marcia is the one in charge...although she says she is not.  Her sister Sherry arrives shortly thereafter.  Job two...breaking eggs in a bowl to be scrambled.  This, it turns out, is not just a BBQ...they serve the guys breakfast.  YUMMY!  Tenderloin...right off the grill, eggs, homemade biscuits and preserves, and homemade sourdough bread.  We ate...then began the process of preparing for the enslaught of customers to retrieve their Chicken with tickets sold.  I had a blast.  These people were so much fun to work with and so Frank and I got in their and got busy.  It was a good day and I am tired.  No unpacking was done today.  Marcia's daughter, Lyndi is coming on Tuesday to help me.  Was that not sweet?  How many juniors in high school would give up a summer day to come help their pastor's wife undo boxes....tomorrow is the big day.  Our first Sunday at Rock Mills.  The bulletins are run, Frank's sermon is done....oh...and Kat and I are singing.  This will be her second time to sing in public with me.  I am thrilled beyond measure.  The only thing that would make it perfect would be if Amy could be here too.  Happy Saturday to all.  Pictures will be posted next week.  There is so much to tell and so much to see.  Have a great Saturday.

TGIF

I would think that was a good thing...but right now..it is just another day of unpacking boxes.  Frank got them all in the house...so at least we don't have to go out in the sweltering heat.  We had to meet Blue at 10:30 at Waverly and turn over the keys...then we went by Mary's and visited with her for a bit, picked up some stuff from the other house (we turn the keys to it over on Monday), ate a Sub at Subway, gassed up, visited my mom and were back in Rock Mills before 2.  Beau was so funny...when we got ready to leave...he actually howled...he has never done that.  It was the most mournful sound.  Frank is on the ball, sermon ready, I am getting more and more nervous the closer we get to Sunday.  Ooops...got to run...Frank is wondering where I am.  I am actually hiding behind some boxes at my desk.  I can't believe how much kitchen crap I have.  Iron Chef America could take place in my kitchen for all the stuff.  Tomorrow is the Chicken Q.

On Zumba and Sexy Moves

Look, I fall down and spill stuff.

A lot.

I’m uncoordinated and I admit that.

So it’s no wonder why my husband Tom looked bewildered when I told him I was going to Zumba class.

“Isn’t that like....dancing?” Tom scratched his head. I know he was probably picturing me smacking into a wall the other day and then spilling my water all over the kitchen counter.

“Yup. It’s a good workout,” I said. And Lord knows I need a good workout with the way I eat. I can’t help it though. Junk food tastes so good. I try to get just as excited over a carrot but it doesn’t work.

“Um....okay,” Tom agreed. He was still baffled. He was probably picturing me running straight into a stack of boxes in the garage. I had been talking to Tommy so I was distracted and I took a few steps and them BAM, box in face.

My friend Amanda, who I was going to Zumba with, mentioned that during one point of the class that the teacher asked everyone to do a sexy move.

“A sexy move?” I repeated. I really don’t do sexy well. I try but apparently my idea on what sexy means is different from most men. Like I flutter my eyelashes when I’m trying to be coy and sweet.....sort of like a come hither look....but most men just ask if I have something in my eye or they think I have Tic.

I decided to practice a sexy move for Tom so that I wouldn’t look like a fool in class.

I did this:



“The hell is that?” Tom demanded.

“I’m being sexy!”

“How is that sexy?”

Well. I don’t know. I was going for a sexy Egyptian look or something. And ugh, I certainly don’t LOOK sexy there as Tom insists on taking my pictures while sitting down which just makes my face look fat. Or maybe my face is just fat. But still, can’t he, I don’t know, STAND UP, and take my photo?

When Amanda picked me up I still had no idea what my sexy move would be. We took our spots in the back—yes, the back because the thought of someone standing behind me watching me attempt to do the dance moves made me shudder—and then the teacher walked in. And the teacher, good gracious, was in SHAPE. I mean, obviously she should be since she teaches a class. Her arms were buff, she had ABS—real abs!—and her legs were lean. Not an ounce of fat was on the chick. In other words, she could have definately beat up Tom.

“She probably doesn’t eat processed foods,” I said to Amanda. I would love a body like that but the thing is, I love processed foods.

The teacher just started the class abuptly. She just started moving and I was all, “Holy crap!” Not out loud, but in my head. I quickly tried to keep up but this chick could move. She went left, she went right, she dipped, she spun around, she did lunges…

I could feel my face grow warm. Whenever I work out my face gets bright red. It is not attractive. There were women up front who didn’t even look winded and their faces were a normal shade of color.

It was an hour long class and let me tell you, I felt like I was going to die a few times. And yes, I got lost in a lot of dance moves and almost punched the woman in front of me when I was trying to do an air punch. But in the end I enjoyed it.

And as for my sexy move?

I shook my hips and twirled my hands in front of me. You know when you sing The Wheels On The Bus? and you sing the part, “The wheels on the bus go round and round..” and twirl your hands? Yeah, I did that even though some women shook their butts—and it didn’t look ridiculous as it would have looked had I attempted it—and other woman shook their hips seductively—and I....well, I twirled my hands as though I were singing a children’s song.

Go me.

Day Two in Rock Mills

We tackled the truck before 6 and actually turned it in at the UHaul place in Roanoke before 10.  We just unloaded everything into the carport.  Now...let's hope it does not rain.  I unloaded boxes, we did a few errands....made sure the cable was in our name....and then had lunch at Gedneys.  Wonderful place to eat.  They are renovating their Wal-mart here...it looks like ours did about 2 years ago...frightening...can't find anything.  It is a small...very very small Supercenter....but hey...it is Walmart. Unpacking is not fun and Frank and I decided that next move...we are hiring movers.  I would not mind unpacking boxes IF, and only if, I didn't have to load and unload them too.  That is what you get for trying to save the church a few dollars.  Sigh!  Today is Thursday and I am anticipating the big Rock Mills Chicken Q on Saturday.  I so want this congregation to like us.